Ideas/tips young people on limited budget

jen_jen_2 · 15 April 2005 at 12:54PM

Hi, I am working with some young people 17 to 20 yrs who live in supported accommodation and have a limited income per week.

They have said they are rubbish at budgeting, at the moment they have to budget for food, going out and clothing (all rent and bills are paid). They have access to internet and were keen to do some internet shopping for groceries. Asda and Tesco are a bus ride away and i think this will be a good way for them to see how much they have spent and to think about their purchases.

Does anyone have any ideas or tips on how to help them stick to their budget, reduce their spending on food or get the most from their money? Does anyone have any advice i can pass on? or ideas on how to make budgeting relvant and important?

Not asking much i know

rchddap1 · 15 April 2005 at 1:00PM

A lot of people here will make meal plans. So, when they go shopping they will mainly buy items for this meal plan. Looking out for reduced items is also a good hobby. Over time you may work out when your local stores mark down some soon to be out of date stock. My local sainsbury's for example, marks down fresh breat at around 6.30pm. I use to be terrible for impulse shopping. Whatever I fancied went in the trolley. These days, I make a list and stick to it.

There is also a grocery challenge at the top of this board, perhaps they could join that? Or create one of their own? Is there something that your lot would love to do together, but just don't have the money for? Perhaps you can encourage them to budget and save some money towards this special event or night out.

Eliza252 · 15 April 2005 at 1:07PM

Are they very co-operative, do they work together much?
You could ask each person to cook one meal a week for everyone else and then set the amount they can spend on the meal - lots of simple and cheap recipes on this website (among others). Bit of healthy competition is always good to encourage more home cooking (cheaper and healthier!)

inkie · 15 April 2005 at 1:35PM

One way of getting them motivated would be to take part in the Pin money challenge (thread on here) and that way they would quickly see the benefit of saving.

Js_Other_Half · 15 April 2005 at 1:37PM

Do they have a reasonable amount of room in a freezer? If they do, get them to make up a larger amount of chilli etc, then freeze in individual portions - much easier to have that with some rice, pasta etc when they haven't planned ahead.

As far as making budgeting important - anything they underspend on the food budget could be used towards a deposit/bond for their next home? However I've worked with this client group, so I know that isn't very likely...:think:

System · 15 April 2005 at 1:43PM

Its took me ages to find THIS but i knew it was here somewhere.

Hope it helps

Curry_Queen · 15 April 2005 at 2:23PM

I guess it depends on the type of accommodation they're in. My eldest son lived in one of these supported places for 16-25 yr olds for a while but they were more like bedsits, with a cooker and sink in their room, rather than having a communal kitchen, although they had communal social areas in the building.

There were also strict rules about what they could and couldn't do in their rooms, which I think precluded having more than x amount of persons in at a time, so cooking together as a group wouldn't have been an option.

Being the soft mum I am I used to provide him with basic cooking ingredients but what he did with them from there I don't know LOL!

Queenie · 15 April 2005 at 3:30PM

jen_jen wrote:

Does anyone have any ideas or tips on how to help them stick to their budget, reduce their spending on food or get the most from their money? Does anyone have any advice i can pass on? or ideas on how to make budgeting relvant and important?

Not asking much i know

Begin first by asking them to split their money into 3 groups: food, clothing, entertainment. (It may seem unbalanced at this point but that's ok, they can tweak as they go, but they need an initial amount in order to tweak!) Food can be sub divided into 7 ... they will now have an idea of how much they can "afford" to spend per day on food. If it's a ridiculously low amount they now have to look at their other two expenditures: which one's are they prepared to compromise on to up their food allowance? Clothing may be more important to one and entertainment may be a higher priority to another.

Now they can begin to look at, if they have X amount to spend per person, per day on their food, just what could they afford to eat?
If their daily budget is £1.25, and Monday's meal works out at say .80p, then that would mean they could put 45p towards say Friday's meal when they wanted something a touch more pricey.. so they would have £1.70 They learn about "balancing" a cheaper meal one day to afford a less cheap meal another day. Flexability.

Then you can gradually introduce them challenges to see if they can reduce it further so they can begin to actually save some money and open a savings account (they may need one anyway to put aside their clothing budget so it can accumilate in order to make their purchases)

The same principle works with their Clothing and Entertainment budget.

If they are keen to go out once a week with their mates, they it's likely they splurge their entertainment budget weekly. If they are happy to 'save' up their entertainment money for something which costs more but happens less frequently then again, it's back to putting it away in their savings.

You could go to the library (take them with you and get them signed up! DVD's, CD's, Console games plus books - cheapest entertainments around!) look through the cookery books - especially those aimed at Students - and research cheap, nutritious meal choices. They should most definatly be encouraged to do this themselves!

Just a few thoughts. HTH

Curry_Queen · 15 April 2005 at 3:59PM

Are any of these young people working or are they on benefits?

If on benefits, I know from my son's experience that this is a very small amount (£30-£40 a week) so every penny counts, hence why I used to buy basic food for him, i.e. pasta, tinned fish, beans, cereal, powdered milk etc ... and I also had to provide him with everything he needed to cook with :rolleyes:

Charity shops are great places to get cheap clothes, and indeed my son managed to get "named" sports gear from Oxfam very cheaply. The only thing he wouldn't buy from a charity shop were his trainers which he bought with gift money from birthday/xmas.

Entertainment was in the form of the shared tv lounge with video/dvd/music and a pool table. Alcohol was banned from the premises anyway because they housed under 18's so that wasn't a required part of their socialising.

Without knowing exactly what their accommodation comprises of (as I presume this can differ across the country) and what facilities they have access to, it's hard to know exactly what to advise.

crana999 · 16 April 2005 at 5:52PM

Curry_Queen wrote:

If on benefits, I know from my son's experience that this is a very small amount (£30-£40 a week) so every penny counts, hence why I used to buy basic food for him, i.e. pasta, tinned fish, beans, cereal, powdered milk etc ... and I also had to provide him with everything he needed to cook with :rolleyes:

They only have to pay for food, going out and clothes! £30-40 / week is hardly stingy for that, to be fair.

I spend less than that on food, going out, clothes, textbooks, societies, health, transport, laundry, mobile (I don't have a normal phone), stationary etc..

And my uni course hours equate to at least a full-time job (plus I have 3 part time jobs..), it's not like I have the extra time to do some things I *could* do to save more money that I would have if I was unemployed (like walk to Asda instead of going to sainsburys..I've done it before, but the time taken isn't really worth it for what I'd save)

PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING

Ideas/tips young people on limited budget

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free